“Oh, bother Rhoda!” cried Hazel impatiently. “Let’s plan how we’re all of us and our luggage going to get out to Green Lake and back, when we’ve only two cars available.”
“Pat and I can take the eats and a couple of girls to guard them, and then come back for the rest of you,” proposed Mary, who owned the only other car in the Gang.
“That’s a good idea,” approved Anne; and so the matter was settled.
Saturday proved to be one of those warm, sunny days which often usher in an early summer.
“See that haze on the hills?” said Katharine, as they were packing the cars in the driveway. “That means heat. We’ll be able to swim after all. Isn’t it fine that we all passed the test, even Clarice?”
“Didn’t look much like a picnic at this time yesterday,” observed Patricia with a shiver at the recollection. “Wasn’t it a cold, dismal day?”
“It sure was! Who’s going on this load?” inquired Anne, turning to the girls who were bossing the job of loading.
“Katharine and Frances will go with Pat,” responded Jane, “and I’ll keep Mary company. Don’t any of the rest of you wander off and have us hunting all over for you when we come back. All aboard who’s going aboard!”
By eleven o’clock the whole Gang, including Rhoda, was swarming over the picnic grounds situated on a wooded hill overlooking Green Lake, an oblong body of very deep water. At one end, the lake was bordered by flat, treeless meadows, and the low shore line provided a fairly good sandy beach. At the other end, heavily wooded land sloped down to the water on all sides, giving it a gloomy, deep green cast. A rough path followed the irregular stretch of water on the east side, and wound on up the hill into the woods where a depression between two steep slopes formed a small picnic ground. The few tables, benches, and stone ovens which occupied the space were unclaimed today; so the girls had their choice. They decided on a table from which they could look through an opening in the trees, directly down onto the still, green water.
“Swim first,” announced Katharine, after the food had been placed upon one table, and the extra wraps upon another.